What time is it, anyway?

[wulfblat at yahoo.com]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C18
From: wulfblat
Subject: What time is it, anyway?
Date: 10/5/99 5:02 pm  (ET)

 When I first read through books one through three of the Harry Potter
 series I assumed that the dates of the events in the books (the
 years, not the days) were a generic "right around now." While reading
 the second book, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" I found a
 reference to a date that pins down the chronology of the stories to exact
 years. Perhaps I'm just a careless reader and everybody else already made
 the connection, but I thought it was an interesting find none the less.

In the chapter where Harry, Ron and Hermione attend Nearly Headless
Nick's death day party we see that Nick was executed on October 31,
1492. Earlier in the chapter when Nick invited Harry to his party he
stated that this year was the 500th anniversary of his death; therefore
Harry's second year at Hogwarts was in 1992. From this date we can see
that Harry was born in 1980 (I don't remember the day of his birthday,
but it must be in July or August), his first year at Hogwarts was 1991,
and his final seventh year was 1998.

What does this mean, other than I'm way too anal for my own good? Not
much, really, other than we're reading a history of Harry's years at
Hogwarts and that he's already working at his chosen profession (or dead).